Tesla is facing another lawsuit alleging a passenger was trapped inside one of its vehicles after a crash.
The mother of a 20-year-old man who died last October filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla in federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges that Samuel Tremblett was unable to escape from a 2021 Model Y after crashing into a tree in Easton, Massachusetts, around 1 a.m. on October 29.
“Unable to open the doors, Mr. Tremblett was trapped in the Tesla vehicle and died from thermal injuries and smoke inhalation before he was able to be rescued,” the lawsuit reads.
The filing even includes a transcript of part of the 911 call Tremblett made after the crash. According to the suit, Tremblet told a dispatcher:
I’m stuck in a car crash… I can’t get out, please help me… I can’t breathe…. It’s on fire, it’s on fire. Help please… I am going to die… I’m dying. Help. [… I’m dying… Help… Help.
Officers responding to the incident said that the fires were too severe to save Tremblett’s life, and there were four separate explosions within the first ten minutes upon their arrival at the scene of the accident.
Neither Tesla nor the plaintiff’s attorneys immediately responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
This lawsuit is the latest to highlight what appears to be a faulty design in Tesla’s electric door handles.
According to the lawsuit, during an electrical system failure, the vehicles’ electronic door handles can malfunction. And while Teslas do include manual door releases, the lawsuit alleges, “the inconspicuous location and markings are not readily discernible, particularly to an occupant who needs to exit the vehicle quickly, escaping a post-crash fire.”
The lawsuit includes images from the Model Y owner’s manual showing that the front door mechanical releases are located near the window switches. But for the rear doors, passengers must first remove a mat from the bottom of the door pocket and then pull a tab to access a release cable. The manual notes that not all Model Ys are equipped with manual releases for rear doors.
Federal regulators have already been investigating the issue. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NSTSA) opened a preliminary probe in September into Tesla’s electrically powered door handles in 2021 Model Y vehicles, the same model Tremblett was driving. The ongoing review covers nearly 175,000 vehicles and is examining how widespread and serious the problem may be.
This isn’t the first lawsuit filed against Tesla over its door design. The parents of two college students who died in a Cybertruck crash filed separate lawsuits in October, alleging the truck’s electric doors with hidden manual releases trapped the victims inside. And a Bloomberg investigation last year found at least 15 deaths in a dozen incidents over the past decade in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open the doors of a crashed Tesla that caught fire.
And it’s not just the U.S. where this is becoming an issue. Just this week, China announced it is banning hidden door handles on cars starting next year. All vehicles will be required to include a mechanical release function.
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